Perhaps the chief reason for bitcoin's sluggish action since putting in a record high above $73,700 all the way back in March is "too far, too fast." At that point, the price of the globe's largest crypto was up nearly five-fold from 14 months earlier, including almost a doubling in just the first 10 weeks of 2024.

Getting into more detail, there was also plenty of forced sell pressure over the summer when the German government moved to market its large stash of seized bitcoin and the Mt Gox trustee began returning tokens to their owners.

There's also the fact that bitcoin trades 24/7 and is thus subject to a lot more leverage and volatility than other assets. This in turn can lead to a lot more liquidation cascades, pushing the price below fair value.

The significant amount of distribution that took place over the summer months, which put downward pressure on the bitcoin price, is shown by the deep red coloring.

Looking ahead though, there appear to be signs of accumulation from many cohorts. So-called shrimps – those with less than one bitcoin – and whales – those holding between 1,000 and 10,000 tokens – have been accumulators for the past month, denoted by the deep blue coloring, according to Glassnode data.